Bensam123 wrote:Your drive can be dying without getting bad sectors. Everything you're pointing to sounds exactly like a hard drive death in motion. I'd try swapping it for another.

I'm using an SSD (X25-M) for the OS and hard drives for data (User accounts) and temp files. I'd like to test the SSD (X25-M) but I don't know how. The SMART data comes back clean and the speed across the drive is regular. So as far as I can gather the drive is fine, if anyone knows any other way to test an SSD let me know. Unfortunately I don't have a spare I can toss in.

The problem did look to be hardware based but the fact of the matter is that Windows was already broken and cumbersome(specifically search and backup) with no resolution in sight. Even if the problem does turn out to be hardware - which seems unlikely given the tests I've run and the smooth transition to Fedora - I'll still be sticking with Linux. The backup works and getting software/updates is trivial and non-time consuming. Since my first priority is data and my second is time it's a perfect match.

Fedora is a good choice for a desktop. I wouldn't run it as a server, but it's been a rock solid desktop. Gnome 3 is a half-baked, but Xfce, which I use, is solid and KDE is working again. There is also LXDE, plus others, for something lighter. I've been using Fedora since release 8, I ran Ubuntu and FreeBSD on and off before that, and it's matured quite a bit. For instance, yum upgrades work seamlessly now. Previously, package manager upgrades were an advantage apt had, but yum has caught up.

Fedora's release engineering is much better then Ubuntu's. It's not on par with Debian, but that's what RHEL/CentOS/SL are for. I got tired of fixing thing in Ubuntu, so I switched. I've only had a couple instances where somethings broke because of an update. One was a missing wifi driver in the kernel, and the other was a ATI video problem which only affected people with older chipsets.

Fedora is also much more flexible, package wise; it's easier to mix and match stuff. I like to try different DEs and software, so it's nice being able to have lots of stuff installed side by side.

The fit and finish of Fedora is very good. It's not Apple level, but it looks really good. They have really good GUI configuration tools, especially the firewall config tool, and Fedora actually recognizes my dual monitors correctly from the get go. Something the other distros haven't been able to do without proprietary drivers which break KMS.

What else. There is a really good installation/post-install walkthrough at Mjmwired (http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f15.html). Install Yumex, RPM Fusion, and the Livna repository first off. Pirut, the default package manager, sucks, and RPM Fusion and Livna will have all the non-free software which Fedora doesn't include.

Lastly, don't turn on the rawhide repos; everything will break. I'm not joking. That's pretty raw code, and they release it in order to break it and find bugs.

Flatland_Spider wrote:I've been using Fedora since release 8, I ran Ubuntu and FreeBSD on and off before that, and it's matured quite a bit. For instance, yum upgrades work seamlessly now. Previously, package manager upgrades were an advantage apt had, but yum has caught up.

I actually came from Fedora originally, and stopped using it around Fedora 6/7 timeframe mostly because the package management was so badly hosed. If yum has (finally!) been cleaned up, maybe I'll give Fedora another chance.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

- The time required to update sometimes seemed to be exponentially related to the number of packages requiring updates. I recall cases where getting a new installation up-to-date would cause the package manager to sit and crunch away at 100% CPU usage for an hour or more. This wasn't time spent downloading packages; it was time spent doing *something* CPU intensive (I have no idea what).

- Brain-dead dependency handling. On at least two occasions, removing a seemingly innocuous package rendered a system unbootable by causing the package manager to remove the installed kernel as part of its dependency resolution process. Yes, it asked for confirmation first; but the prompt had a timeout... with a default choice of "Yes".

I'm sure these issues have been fixed by now, as Fedora 6 was a long time ago (practically prehistoric in Linux distro terms). I just haven't been motivated enough to give Fedora another spin, since Ubuntu has been working out just fine.

Back in the day, I used older versions of Redhat to set up a few servers. My home file server ran an ancient copy of Redhat 8 for many years (it runs Ubuntu these days).

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

Nice. A package manager can only do so much for idiotic dependencies created by developers. Dependency handling isn't any worse then anything else I've tried. Every now and then it will get fussy about updating packages, but that's rare.

A default answer of yes is pretty stupid. I'm pretty sure they fixed that, and now it will just sit at the prompt. I haven't tested it. I usually have time to check install/uninstall dependencies.

If Ubuntu's been working for you, keep running it. It quit working for me, so I switched.

axeman wrote:What about frontends to search yum repos for packages you don't know the specific name of? Maybe I'm a RedHate noob, but last I tried it, I couldn't figure out any way to search easily like in Synaptic, Aptitude, et. al.

There is Add/Remove Softeware, or gpk-applicaton, the default yum GUI. It works, but I'm not a fan.

Yum Extender, or Yumex, is the other yum GUI. I really like Yumex. The new UI isn't as nice as the old UI, but it still works really well.

axeman wrote:At this point, XFCE is almost equivalent to Gnome 2, at least for my needs, so there's always that if you aren't convinced the new hotness is not so hot.

Xfce is really nice; it's my main desktop environment. It's always made more sense and been able to be configured easier then KDE or Gnome. It's one of those things that just works.

puppetworx wrote:The problem did look to be hardware based but the fact of the matter is that Windows was already broken and cumbersome(specifically search and backup) with no resolution in sight. Even if the problem does turn out to be hardware - which seems unlikely given the tests I've run and the smooth transition to Fedora - I'll still be sticking with Linux. The backup works and getting software/updates is trivial and non-time consuming. Since my first priority is data and my second is time it's a perfect match.

just brew it! wrote:Which distros have you tried? As noted above, bleeding edge distros like Fedora that have frequent releases are sometimes a bit half-baked.

Personally, I like Fedora. I've used Fedora through all of its incarnations. (I started with RedHat Linux 2.) Yes, it does have its ups and downs...but I also like having some of the latest programs and versions of programs available through the package manager system. It has, generally, been stable and usable for daily use and, while my main desktop has Win 7 on it these days, before Win 7, I had used Fedora as my daily desktop operating system for years (and Windows almost exclusively for gaming).

just brew it! wrote:With Unity and GNOME 3 both arriving, I'm thinking maybe it is time for me to take another look at KDE the next time I upgrade.

Bah I've tried to love KDE. I really have. Aside from Amarok, which I don't use anymore and Ktorrent, the rest of it is just a usability nightmare. To me it's worse than KDE3.x It's like they took every usability/interface no-no and magnified it. I've always loved the options of KDE but they just aren't organized in any way that's sane. KDE 3.x required a little bit of learning curve but it wasn't that bad. You could spend about 5 min or so and get pretty much where everything was. Now with Kwin themes/actions, QT color Styles, QT Themes, Desktop themes, you'll spend quite a bit of time just getting it to where it doesn't piss you off. Then there's Dolphin to contend with (which wasn't a problem before). Then comes the damn network manager.... holy crap. If you are on wireless and you want to use it.... this is what I suggest. If you're male put your genitals on the table and then hit them with a hammer. The pain you will experience will be the same as trying to figure out whether your changes to your wireless config have been committed. The difference? When you hit yourself with the hammer you'll be in full control.

Actually it's fine for the type of gaming I do. I run Ubuntu 11.04 64bit with the Gnome desktop and can play World of Goo, Braid, Tetrinet, LBreakout2 etc just perfectly including across my LAN. It might not be the type of gaming YOU are interested in, but it does fine for me.

puppetworx wrote:Getting a system use ready is crazy fast using repositories - so much so that it makes me cringe thinking of having to install Windows ever again.

If you really want to see stupidly fast application installation, start maintaining your own local mirror of the repository!

Also try running Ubuntu on Amazon... I installed Virtualmin on an AMI and got 20-30 MB/s

I've got the repository on a drive on my server, gigabit wired network and network boot setup. I installed the entire OS from initial power on of a blank system to fully installed, rebooted and using it in 12 minutes on a core i7 920 with a Vertex 2. I typically see 50-55MB/s on package installation, I'm limited by my server's drive (640GB Caviar Black).

Key word in Fighterpilot's post is consumer. For a typical "Joe consumer" PC, I agree Windows is generally the best option; and if running commercial PC games is a requirement, it is pretty much the *only* option.

For other use cases, Linux is better.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

In my experience, when the filesystem goes bad, Windows (XP in particular) tends to run slowly. Fortunately I haven't had as many cases of filesystems going bad with my Windows 7 machines, so I can't say for 7. I think your hard disk might have some bad sectors silently corrupting the filesystem. Do a full media test and see.

Otherwise, Windows is extremely stable these days. In fact, Linux gives me more problems because it always changes and functionality is handled through an increasingly complex network of programs - last I heard, changing the resolution via xorg.conf is 'deprecated and forbidden', and wireless is just a mess and jumbled assortment of commands whose interrelatedness you only learn about through the bottom of their manpages. Sure the user friendly distros make it easy to change via a click, but what happens when X refuses to work (all too common an occurence)? Then you're ****, and the real complexity lying underneath all that gloss bares its ugly teeth at you. I'm not really sure anymore how VMWare Tools does its magic with X, but one thing's for sure - I don't want to spend the time to find out anymore. I don't want to spend the time to find out what's the "new way" anymore, especially when Wayland comes out - these days I have better things to do.

When I need Linux, I just run for the simplicity of Arch Linux these days. Then I just ssh into it to do anything with it. For anything graphical, I just use Windows.

just brew it! wrote:Key word in Fighterpilot's post is consumer. For a typical "Joe consumer" PC, I agree Windows is generally the best option; and if running commercial PC games is a requirement, it is pretty much the *only* option.

For other use cases, Linux is better.

The definition of "PC" is changing. For many consumers an iOS/Android device is now the best option.